Métis

This novel begins with the story of sixteen-year old Annie living in San Francisco who embarks on a road trip with her mother, uncle and grandfather to Medicine Lake. This trip has many purposes, one of them being a quest to save her grandfather who has been newly diagnosed with AIDS. In Annie’s voice the first paragraphs of ‘The Healing Journey’ offer an eye into the world of a teenager taking an unusual trip. I hope you like the book.

“Lynn Ponton has written an engrossing adolescent coming of age novel that spans centuries, yet stays passionately in each present moment, seamlessly connecting the political with the personal.”

The Healing Journey

Mom has always told me that ‘Medicine’ is a great word in her country, the land of doctors. For her I think it is holy, a sacrament, even though it is peddled by drug companies that make millions. Grandpa tells me that the Métis médecins are all reportedly magicians, skilled in the mysteries of healing. They carry their médecine with them just like my mom carries her prescriptions today. We are leaving for Medicine Lake.

I’m driving, not because I want to, but because I have more room that way– I don’t have to be crammed into the back seat. Grandpa sits next to me while Marc and Mom argue in the back, wedged between the camping stove, sleeping bags, and cartons of food. What did Mom pack in the trunk? And where will we stop for breakfast? They’ve already started discussing it. No camp stove yet. A truck stop with eggs-over-easy or a bakery with scones and lattés? Why is it such a big deal, anyway? It’s early, and the sun is rising. Who needs to eat?

Grandpa and I both put on our sunglasses just before we drive onto the Golden Gate Bridge. The sunlight fills out overstuffed car as its first rays hit the water. The bridge glows. I drive slowly, not because I don’t want to get a ticket– I just want to see the light on the water. I look to fiery Mount Diablo in the east as the sun pops up behind it, casting a copper light on a land of water and islands engulfed in the morning fog. My English teacher says we San Franciscans live in Avalon, a mythical place of misted islands and foamy seas, and this morning I finally see it. San Francisco. The Magic Kingdom. I try not to get into an accident, but look long enough to freeze this image for a future photo.

My teacher is right. I need to be on this trip.

As we pull off the shining bridge and wind up the steep road leading into Marin County, I break a promise to myself a look back. I want to see it– the hot, glowing bridge wrapped in silver fog, leading to my city. Bad luck. My friends are always telling me, “Don’t turn around, Annie. You’ll be okay. Just don’t look back.” Of course, they aren’t driving their sick grandfather and half-crazed mother and uncle into the wilderness on some kind of pilgrimage. They don’t have this kind of family. With this family, you look back.

Red Otter

Damn, I didn’t want to come to this place. A pull stop in the middle of a dead cornfield. Not even a real train station. I was gonna run. But they knew that, so the director has his assistant ride the train with me, a good with iron arms that never let go of me. When we are leaving Chicago, I hear him say to the conductor, “I’m not supposed to take my hands off this dirty half-breed until I see the Indian woman.” That’s me he’s talking about– the dirty half-breed.

Chicago

The summer of 1968 is hot, humid, and marked with a kaleidoscope of electric storms. Lying on the hood of the Plymouth at Herrick’s Lake, Anaquad and I count the jagged streaks of lightning as they strike the lake. One night, we watch a giant red pine on the edge of the steepest granite glacier bluff join with the sky’s fire, ignite and topple into the murky green water below.